Egyptian court bans YouTube for one month

The Cairo Administrative Court ordered the
government-run National Telecommunication Regulation Authority (NTRA) on
February 9, 2013, to ban YouTube for one month after the website failed to
remove a video widely considered anti-Islamic, according to news reports. Similar judicial attempts to block websites have
been overturned on appeal
in the past.

The ban came in response to a lawsuit filed by
Mohammad Hamid Salim, an Egyptian lawyer, who said the film constituted a
threat to Egypt's security and that YouTube, the video sharing site owned by
Google, had refused to remove the film despite its offensive content. YouTube
had temporarily restricted access to the video in Libya and Egypt, it said in a
statement to CNN
in September 2012.

The NTRA referred the case to its legal
committee to determine if it could appeal the ruling, according to news
reports. In 2009, the NTRA did not implement an
order banning pornographic websites, citing "great technical and technological
difficulty."

Two similar
lawsuits were also filed against
the government and Google. In addition, a blogger, Alber
Saber, a Coptic Christian, was sentenced to
three years in prison for sharing the video on social networking sites,
according to news reports. He was released on bail.